{"id":762,"date":"2009-12-29T21:04:21","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T05:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=762"},"modified":"2009-12-29T21:04:21","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T05:04:21","slug":"chess-immersion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=762","title":{"rendered":"Chess immersion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I had the chance to do something I almost never do, except at tournaments — spend the whole day thinking about chess. That’s one of the nice benefits of the holiday season, when there are no deadlines pressing on me.<\/p>\n

Mostly I was getting my thoughts together for my next ChessLecture. There was one position in my most recent lecture that I really didn’t do a good job of analyzing. The lecture was called “Learn From Your Fellow Amateurs, Episode XX: Consolidation,” and I went over Thadeus Frei’s game against Nelson Sowell\u00c2\u00a0from the Northern California state championship, where\u00c2\u00a0Thadeus went 6-0 in the class B section. (See this post<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The game began like this:<\/p>\n

Thadeus Frei — Nelson Sowell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Queen’s Indian Defense<\/em> (by transposition)<\/p>\n

1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 b6 3. Nf3 Bb7 4. g3 e6 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. d4 d5 8. Ne5 c5?!<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my lecture I incorrectly stated that this was a pretty good move for Black, but actually it should have gotten him into hot water.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

My comments here were a real cop-out. I said that I had never had very much luck playing against this kind of formation as White, and it’s one reason I don’t play\u00c2\u00a0queen-pawn openings.<\/p>\n

Be that as it may, many of my listeners do play queen-pawn openings, and I owed them a better effort to figure out what was going on.<\/p>\n

By “this kind of formation,” I mean a pawn formation where White’s pawns on c4 and d4 butt head to head against Black’s pawns on c5 and d5. As far as I know, this type of pawn formation doesn’t have a name (does anyone know of one?) so I will just call it a “box formation” or “four pawns in a box.” (You can also have box formations elsewhere on the board, but the c- and d-files are the most common locations.)<\/p>\n

I have never seen box formations discussed in a textbook. How do you tell whether a box formation is good or bad for you? What should you do when faced with it? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had some definite ideas on the subject and that this was worth a ChessLecture. Moreover, I think that this particular position illustrates the themes very well.<\/p>\n

I know you’re dying to hear what the answers are, but you’ll have to wait for my lecture!<\/p>\n

While I was looking for examples, I came across a couple of games with\u00c2\u00a0pretty finishes. For a nice, easy, end-of-year quiz, see if you can figure out White’s winning moves:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

White to move.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is from the game William Kelleher — Larry Kaufman, U.S. Chess League 2006. Black has just played … Be4, attacking the rook on f3. Does White have to move it?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

This position is from a game between Fernando Peralta and Alberto Andres Gonzalez, two people whom I know nothing about, from San Sebastian 2005. (Of course, with the Internet there is no excuse for such ignorance. Fernando Peralta is a grandmaster and former champion of Argentina. Andres Gonzalez is a Spanish IM.) White has a lot of pressure on the a1-h8 diagonal, but Black’s knight on f6 is in the way. How can White break through? (Hint<\/em>: Not with the obvious 1. Qxf6.)<\/p>\n

Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. After 1. Rxg7+! Kxg7 2. Rg3+<\/strong> it’s mate in a couple more moves.<\/p>\n

2. Peralta came up with the nice move 1. Ne8! <\/strong>I always think it’s cool when a knight goes all the way to the back rank and strikes the opponent from behind. The first point is that 1. … Nxe8? runs into an immediate mate by 2. Qh8++. The more subtle point is that there is a companion mate after 1. … Rxe8 2. Qxe8+ Nxe8 3. Rxe8+ Kh7 4. Rh8++.<\/strong> Andres Gonzales played 2. … Kg7 instead, but after 3. Bxf6+ he threw in the towel because he is going to have a completely hopeless exchange-down endgame.<\/p>\n

By the way, the trouble with 1. Qxf6<\/font>, a move many chess players might have chosen, is that after 1. … Qxf6 2. Bxf6 Rxd6 3. Re8+ Kh7 4. Rh8+ Kg6<\/font> (note how this flight square is now available to Black because the queen is gone), Black is still alive and kicking<\/p>\n

Moral: In a position where your opponent’s defenses are stretched to the limit, look for that little extra twist that will push them beyond the limit — often a sacrifice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I had the chance to do something I almost never do, except at tournaments — spend the whole day thinking about chess. That’s one of the nice benefits of the holiday season, when there are no deadlines pressing on me. Mostly I was getting my thoughts together for my next ChessLecture. There was one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,171,31],"tags":[1251,1249,1250,1248,1247,84,173,1020],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-lecture","category-ruminations","category-us-chess-league","tag-argentina","tag-butting-heads","tag-fernando-peralta","tag-pawn-formation","tag-quiz","tag-strategy","tag-tactics","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}